Kentucky Basketball: John Calipari’s 5 Year Mission

The 2012-13 season was not what people had envisioned after the 2012 national title.  Calipari had another top ranked class, headlined by Nerlens Noel, Archie Goodwin, Willie Cauley-Stein and Alex Poythress. And with NC State transfer Ryan Harrow to run the team, expectations were high for another dominating season. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be realized.  It soon became apparent that the team just wasn’t constructed properly.  The kids were good kids, but the on court results just weren’t there. And when Noel went down on February 12, 2013 with an ACL injury, the team never fully recovered.  The Cats became one of the few NCAA champions to not make the field the next year and a first round NIT loss to Robert Morris gave Calipari’s (and Kentucky’s) critics plenty of ammunition to say that Cal’s way of recruiting and coaching, specifically the one and dones, wasn’t a viable long term strategy.

But Cal did what he always does, this season, he brought in the best high school players he could, with most recruiting services calling this class the best recruiting class in history.  With the Harrison twins (Andrew and Aaron) in the backcourt, James Young on the wing, big men Julius Randle, Dakari Johnson and Marcus Lee in addition to returning sophomores Cauley-Stein and Poythress, expectations were high. In fact, a few thought this team could go 40-0 and made shirts to prove it. But a funny thing happened to the preseason number one team. For most of the year, they weren’t very good. They lost to Michigan State and to North Carolina, but they also lost to dreadful South Carolina (in a near blowout) and to Arkansas twice.  The team limped into the postseason with 9 losses after a 20 point drubbing at the hands of the Florida Gators to end the season.

Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

With this team’s finish and last year’s NIT debacle in hand, almost everyone wrote this team off.  The sharks circled, highlighted by Pat Forde’s now infamous “Make Your Bed, John Calipari” article.  On social media, on front porches and around dinner tables around the Commonwealth, even the most diehard Wildcat fan had to question whether Cal had lost his magic touch, even less than 24 months since the 2012 title. Prior to the SEC Tournament, Cal mentioned a “tweak” that he would employ to right the ship. Some laughed, some scoffed, but the team believed.  They dispatched LSU and Georgia and pushed Florida in a 61-60 SEC Tournament Final defeat. The Cats entered the NCAA Tournament as an 8 seed in the Midwest region of doom, a region that included undefeated Wichita State, defending champion  and hated rival Louisville and Big Ten champion Michigan. Few, if any, gave the Cats a chance to emerge from such a tough region and make it to Dallas for the Final Four. But, the team of freshmen, the team of kids with their eyes on the NBA, the team with the bad chemistry and worse body language, closed out the undefeated Shockers, rival Cardinals and Wolverines to make the Final Four. And they did it by playing with poise and confidence down the stretch in all three games.

As head coach at the University of Kentucky, John Calipari is 151-36 overall, 64-20 in the SEC and 15-2 in the NCAA Tournament. He’s won one NCAA title, been to three Final Fours and four Elite Eights in his five years, the lone exception being the year he lost his star player to injury. Even to the most jaded critic, Calipari’s way isn’t just successful, he’s excelling in this time of the one and dones like no other coach.  He has set the bar for freshmen-laden teams getting more from them than most coaches do with veteran heavy teams.  Calipari is succeeding and, as the great Frank Sinatra once said, he’s doing it his way.